Oh No’s debut album for Now-Again Records was also the first in Now-Again’s “music library” series, one of the label’s most successful exercises in creating modern “library music” for easy synchronization for film and TV. It also stood alone as an instrumental album for this lauded producer. For this entry, the seventh Now-Again Music Library, Oh No combs through a now-much-more-vast catalog from American soul, funk and jazz to Iranian folk to Zambian hard rock. Fans of the variety of projects that Oh No is a part – from his Gangrene project with Alchemist to his production for the likes of Talib Kweli and Danny Brown – will be pleased with the variety of beats contained within.

This album is 19 tracks, running 40 minutes. As with all of Now-Again’s library releases, comes as a limited edition is CD is packaged in a “mini-LP” thick cardboard “tip-on” sleeve and is only available digitally at Now-Again’s subscription service at http://drip.fm/nowagain

Gaslamp Killer is one of our favorite DJs and a big supporter of the Heliocentrics, recently saying that Heliocentrics producer and drummer Malcolm Catto “is the reason I got into all of this shit.” That inspiration comes through in this mix of GLK re-edits of some of the best tracks from their new album 13 Degrees of Reality, and the series of EPs that Now-Again will launch in 2014. He also mixes in some music from 60s ensembles that influenced the band. GLK writes:

“In 2008 Jeff Jank asked me to make a Heliocentrics podcast for stones throw to help promote the guys 1st album. It was one of my most fun & unique mixes. Here we are 5 years later in 2013 & again, I was asked to make a mix of some of the bands newest material from their superb album entitled “13 degrees of reality” that was just released & i was even granted access to some of the unreleased sessions that I had been hearing so much about for so many years from Egon. It is an honor that I present this, (my newest mix) HELIO GLK to the world. My chopped up / re edited madness from the band they call The Heliocentrics!”

We put together a short collection of tracks from Madlib Medicine Show #1-13 called Pill Jar, presented here as a free download from Rappcats.com. The collection has now been expanded to 20 tracks and pressed onto limited edition vinyl. Featured artists include: DOOM, J Dilla, Karriem Riggins, James Poyser, Guilty Simpson. Artwork by Rogerio Puhl, design by Jeff Jank.

In Spring 2013, the Estate of James Yancey revived J Dilla’s Pay Jay Productions as a functioning imprint and announced its release of Dilla’s long lost vocal album, The Diary, with the first Pay Jay single “Anthem.”

“Diamonds & Ice” is the second single, a 7-track 12-inch EP.

This EP contains what might be the two best known tracks from The Diary – one leaked years ago in the form of a low-bit MP3, and another as a short-lived promotional single. These versions – both final and alternate mixes – come straight from mixed-down masters that Dilla himself created.

Long before his posthumous album The Shining (2006), J Dilla titled these two tracks “The Shining Pt. 1” and “The Shining Pt. 2.” “Diamonds (The Shining Pt. 1)” was produced Nottz, and “Ice (The Shining Pt. 2)” was produced by Madlib, who Dilla would later collaborate with under the group name Jaylib. The Diamonds & Ice EP contains two markedly different versions of “Ice,” with one showing the musical direction Dilla would embark on after The Diary was shelved in 2002.

Rounding out this EP is a Madlib instrumental that J Dilla secured for the album but never turned into the final song, titled “The D.” We’ve included this beat as a hint of what could have been.

The Estate of James Yancey is administered by attorney Alex Borden and overseen by the Probate Court of the State of California on behalf of Yancey’s four heirs – his mother, Maureen “Madukes” Yancey, his brother John “Illa J” Yancey and his two daughters, Ja’Mya Yancey and Ty-monae Whitlow.